A Census Amendment

The pronoun Stupid, my first husband and I met when I was about to turn 21. Our first date was at the then very fabulous, now simply ostentatious restaurant, Scaramouche. It was at this restaurant that I discovered savoury Jello could have the pseudonym palate cleanser; a little Ajax for the tastebuds. I effectively moved in with Stupid after that first date. The chief reason being: the only platonic roommate I'd ever had, still to this date, had driven me absolutely, passive aggressively... bonkers.

Ack, the second ex-husband/ best friend, and I waited until we were married before he moved in with me. We wanted to keep things pure and sweetly old fashioned. After 5 1/2 months of our first date, our courtship was ended by a notarized decree. And on a late August day I was carried over the threshold I'd walked over thousands of times before.

Smack dab in the middle of one day and 5 1/2 months, I find myself in love again, sharing a life, a bed and a home with another man.

Fatty moved in a couple of weeks ago.
And then there were three.
If we were Russian dolls, from biggest to smallest, it would be Fatty, the Comrade and Chicken.

It wasn't planned. It was more a circumstantial thing. Initially I was scared to death. Yikes! Someone else! Lack of sufficient cartwheel space in my 1400 sq. ft. apartment! Though I carry the fantasy tucked within my right buttcheek, the bizarre prudishness I'm prone to has prevented me from walking around naked in my own apartment. What if the fantasy was quashed by another's existence?

Much of my reticence was the old fears of having to put up with another creature who makes messes, who breaks things, who occasionally smells, who is human.

Irrationally, the breaking of objects seem more forgivable if I am at the helm of its demise. I reason that I am more than likely the one who chose or made the thing in the first place. I correlate this sensation with the thoughts of any honest mother while gazing upon her little bundle of hell spawn: I gave you life... and I can take it away. Broken, marred or stained objects feel like a waste of time and energy. I am a Virgo, cursedly. I like my garage sale items just so.

My real problem in the past has been looking at men simply as liabilities. Historically, I was the one who fixed things, then bitched later about the lack of help. It is difficult to ask for help as there's always the possibility of a "no" answer.

Both Fatty and I are working on the simply asking without the existence of either pure aggression (me), or passive aggression (him). Just plain asking doesn't come just plain naturally to either of us.

It is interesting when 2 people, both gifted in service arenas, find themselves in love, sharing a life. We both seem to know what to do. We both seem to know where to pick up if the other's fallen off the map, or veered off course for a while. We made a very good discovery the other day while working on the deck. We learned that we're best when we're working together, but not on the same set of duties. One project requires many facets of responsibility and skill, so as neophyte tacticians, after many failed attempts at performing the same task, we learned to heatseek the things we find fun in, understanding that those are the things that we're more than likely better suited to perform. Luckily he finds fun in what I find taxing. Over a day and a half we turned our once ghetto deck into a lovely outdoor room, a place where if one of us is feeling the need for momentary solitude, we can take leave to our new created retreat.

I now sit al fresco, with 60 SPF smeared elegantly above my lip to reduce the very manly looking effects of my unique hyperpigmentation. I don my cap with the Comrade sewn Che Guevara emblem masquing the one time corporate swoosh that lay immediately north of my third eye. It gives me balance to see in super three dimensions. Most people just use their 2 standard issue ocular implements. I need the aid of the 3rd as I’m now playing warden to the raccoon who lives under my deck. I keep in mind something a former prison guard once told me.

There’s a pub down the road that upon first inspection might not be a decent draw. Uninteresting signage. Bar not quite visible from the street. Oak and brass elements throughout. It has the aesthetic of sherry sipping Grandmas in one corner, while in others overworked dads in their late 30's, descendants of the largest per capita consumers of potatoes, double-fist pints and whiskey as they regale themselves with jaunty folk songs their Ma's used to lull them to sleep with. In the back, young post punks wail down mics set at American standards; high and terrifying. Screaming mouths large enough to envelop crowds full of fauxhawks are tilted at an angle set on Venus, while accusatory eyes correct the crowd, keeping them squarely within their assigned real estate. Post apocalyptic manicured clothing too expensive to mosh with. In short, this bar doesn't really know what it wants to be when it grows up. I like this bar a lot.

Manning all that brass, oak and confusion is a middle aged couple. Both bear the kind of guts I occasionally imagine in mental medical cross-section. Organs gently nestled in slippery, yellow tinged fat. Prior to working as a bar owner/maid, the woman, I discovered, had for 20 years - the years of stolen youth - a career, 1 km due North of my humble H.Q., as a prison guard in Toronto's Don Jail. From jailer to booze slinger, this to me is a natural transition in career choices. She taught me how to calm the savage beast.

Prison Guard cum Bartender: Wait until they get in your face, keep an oh yeah? expression, and with the butt of your hand, fully extended arm, smash them straight up the nose.

okay...

Fatty’s named the small and painfully cute raccoon Percy, short for persistent. He has a brother, Rather Mangy, a scrawny, gnawed tailed, despondant looking guy who’s the 4 legged, masked equivalent of a crackhead. He doesn't give us any trouble, which is great because Fatty is convinced he's rabid. He seems quite disinterested in our deck. His frying fish is on one of the other decks that create a M.C. Escher style pattern if viewed from the south. Though mangy, he knows there's nothing for him here. All of our household waste is kept in a not-so-sanitary environment indoors next to my winter boots and in close proximity to Chicken’s bidet.

Percy? Well, he wouldn’t have attained his name if he gave up so quickly. And he really does have a strange penchant for dirt.

The Doyenne, my enchanting boss from my one night a week engagement at the Cheer's Equivalent, suggested bloodmeal, a dried, ground blood and bone mixture which not only promotes luscious growth, but she'd heard it was a safe, humane deterrent to both squirrels and raccoons. I swear to God, I sprinkled liberally and within 15 minutes, in broad daylight, Percy was going apeshit on one of the inground planters. I have no idea what he’s looking for in there. It’s not as if there is a giant horned vessel filled with freshly hacked pieces of poultry or half a sow or anything else that might be contained within a beige 25L cornucopia made by Rubbermaid. Believe me; I looked. Fatty and I dug until the spade thunked the planter’s end.

Even when he came perilously close to attacking me,
Little and lunging with bared teeth...
Admittedly he was not as cute then.
But he’s just trying to make a living.
Trying to live his dream.
And I can respect that.

But the little fucker is still lifting my delphiniums.
If only I could reach the initial stage of giving him the oh yeah? expression.
Fatty doesn't think it's helpful that I talk to Percy in the same manner in which I converse with Chicken.

This morning, with coffee not sitting well as it was a bad corner store varietal, I was making egg salad.

Fatty: Chicken and Egg had just finished having sex. Egg was smoking a cigarette. I guess that answers that question.

20 minutes of continuous laughter tends to make me feel better.
When I told Ack, he was secretly rooting for the cat to come in first.

Things get broken all the time.
Uprooted by a force outside one's self, momentarily cast off.
But it's just stuff.
Stuff can be replaced.
People can't.
The statement If it ain't broke, don't fix it never really appealed to me anyway.
Plus, there's an excellent opportunity to ask someone to help you fix something.
And when my gorgeous young man tells me how sexy I am walking around naked, a little of the prudishness goes.

And one more thing gets fixed.